Tag: momfriends

We have planned quite a few things and have been having so much fun! A few Pinecrest trips already and a Pinecrest movie, Mammoth Lakes with the family, already a few lake trips and days on the houseboat.

I had a procedure so I haven’t been able to work out the way I was which is a bummer but I’m going to come back strong. I haven’t written much since Barry passed away but we got a new puppy. Which means I am also running low on sleep! Before I had my procedure I was taking Bailee for hikes and walks and can’t wait to start that again!

Its going to be so nice on Mondays to drop Rylan off at school and take her for a morning hike before it gets too hot! Pretty excited and she’s doing so good! She still pulls on the leash but is way better and I feel like she’s starting mature a bit. She’s a big sister now!

Its such a bummer that Pat has had to work every day since March! He still manages to make time for us because he’s amazing. But I still feel bad doing things without him. We aren’t going to his family cabin at Bucks lake this year. It doesn’t seem fair to do things and go there without him.

Rylan is loving summer so much too. Which is good! I don’t want her to inherit my dislike for summer the way she’s adapted my dislike of babies!!!

Her baby cousin is the cutest thing ever and yet at 2 months old she still acts like he’s a little terrorist out to ruin her life. He can’t walk, talk, or take her toys and yet when he’s around she goes into a kind of panic mode! Screaming and crying when he cries and clinging to me wanting to be in a different room than him at all times.

It was funny the first time. Its been 2 months. Its not funny anymore!

They came swimming with us and she whined and cried for 2 hours because he was there. NOPE! I let her cry. she had her floaty on and would get in the water and be okay until she looked at him. ugh. Its not like its a sibling but I love them we will be spending a lot of time with them! She needs to get over it!

If you haven’t given your sick toddler fruit snacks for breakfast when their sick just so they’ll eat something, are you even a parent of a toddler?

That happened this morning. We spent Saturday in Urgent care and yesterday in the doctors office followed by the Emergency Room. Diagnosis: Pneumonia.

I learned a lot about our family in this Emergency process. I learned my 3 year old can play opossum with the best of them. That’s right faking lethargy. I mean she was sick and tired and just wanted to cuddle but she wouldn’t even react when the doctor is listening to her lungs or to the pulse ox on her finger. Didn’t lift her head from my chest when a doctor or nurse was in the room.

When we leave the office she’s instantly Chatty Kathy asking pat where he was, and what took him so long to get there, and if we are going home, is he coming, why is he riding with us, and the best…telling us she’s fine and just wants to go watch Goldie and Bear. Opossum.

What I didn’t learn and am still trying to figure out is how do you parent a sick child? Where is the line between giving the fruit snacks for breakfast and totally losing control of your French parenting lifestyle goals? We try to be French and have a frame work of rules. I know we fail a lot but we have to have goals right?

For the most part we do okay. She listens pretty well and knows when we are serious about things. She gets time outs and yes I’ve patted her on the but before. But do you spank a sick kid? Do I put her in time out because she’s crying over the wrong color gummy vitamin? That seems a bit harsh since she clearly doesn’t feel good. On the other hand eat the damn gummy or cry in your room mommy is also tired now too.

Still this is a struggle for us. When you do stick to the rules and when do you let things slide because quite frankly when I’m sick the rules and expectations of me can suck it.

Its been a few days since I started writing this and I’m no closer to figuring it out. The only thing I can say is that she is a champ at taking medication! Even yucky antibiotics. She takes it herself and I feel like she’s in training for tequila shots. She takes the meds, has a juice chaser, and gets a gummy vitamin treat right after. Lick the salt, take the shot, suck the lime? I swear I’m a good mom! We can get concerned when she starts asking for chasers.

I think our saving grace was that I can use “doctors orders” for a lot of things! Threatening with having to go back to the hospital has also worked really well in my favor when trying to get her to do things. So bribes and blackmail is what it sounds like. Basically no different from my normal parenting style. Awesome.

To be clear there was a ton of cuddle time in my house. It was the silver lining that when she’s sick she just wants me by her side snuggled if the couch. Can’t complain about that one bit her snuggles are the very best. My hair can wait a few days to be washed anyway.

I found this podcast and am obsessed. Sounds like a tangent but its relevent I swear. It’s a parenting podcast and seriously the best one I’ve found yet! Here are two links that literally had me laughing out loud while I was doing dishes and driving to and from work.

“Where the thermometer? I think she has a fever!” I yell to Pat as I’m changing Rylans diaper.

“She doesn’t have a fever we just checked it an hour ago” Pat rolls his eyes as he hands me the thermometer.

I love that he can roll his eyes while doing what I want. No matter how ridiculous he always humors me.

That was a little less than 3 years ago. Every new mother has a thing. For me her thing was her temperature. I can feel the judgment from here, yes I’m sure I had more than one thing but at this point the fever was my biggest obsession.

I took her temp constantly and was always worried about her having a fever. She ran super hot all the time. Mainly at night and that hasn’t gone away. I’ve just learned that if I have to question if there’s a fever or not… there’s not.

Which brings me to this past 2 weeks ago. She woke up crying and when I picked her up there was no doubt she had a fever. We snuggled on the couch and she was so warm I considered turning on the AC.

I took her temp and as expected it was 102. It ranged from 100 to 104 for the next two days. I know I should have taken her to the ER right away but I work in a medical office I know how this goes. It’s a virus and there’s nothing they can do but alternate Tylenol and Motrin and keep her cool and do baths…yadda yadda yadda. So that’s what we did.

Come Thursday morning her temp had started to go down on its own but we made an apt for her anyway. Turns out it was a double ear infection! One of which had possibly ruptured! Awesome job mom.

Nothing makes you feel like a worse mother than NOT taking her to the doctor, only to find out she has a ruptured ear drum. I will no longer question whether or not to take her in. If I’m thinking about I’m doing it. Bring on the hypochondriac comments I’ll take the punch.

My 3 year old sassy pants did not even complain this whole time. The same kid who threw herself on the ground and screamed because I tried to put the wrong pants on her never once mentioned that her ears hurt. That’s the only thing saving me from really believing I’m a terrible mom.

Not even a week after this happened she’s feeling better and wanting to read stories before bed time again. We were reading the book “The Sleep Fairy”. To whoever bought that book for me I think you owe me money for it. Who busy a book as a present that makes the parents buy their children presents every night they sleep in their bed by themselves? We are on a budget! I’d rather her sleep in bed with me!

Luckily for me my kid is a little weird and after listening to the whole story cuddled in to me very concerned. She put the book down and said “mama, if the sleep fairy tries to come in my room and put something under my pillow while I’m sleeping….I’m going to scream.”

I’ve never been more proud! Glad she’s feeling better and back to being feisty. Next time we are going to the doctor. Then I’ll buy her a present!

I love making plans. The idea of doing all the things is very appealing to me and always sounds great. But when it comes to actually doing all the things I lose motivation, and to be honest I get a little anxiety.

My friend once told me she makes back up plans when she makes plans with me. I’m not even mad! I actually thought “well that’s smart!” followed by “I wonder what the back up plans are and if I want to do that”.

So I complain that we all don’t get together enough and then I don’t show up. Yes I suck so hard!

That’s my new years resolution this year. Get ready cause its a long important one. Spend more time with my friends!! What a crazy concept! Seriously though I want to spend more time with the friends that make me happy. The ones that make me laugh, that I can cry with, that my kid can be a brat in front of and they wont judge me when I flick her in the arm. Not hard, just enough so she knocks it off.

This started with my sister-in-law around Thanksgiving. I was complaining about all my groups of friends never doing anything and never getting together. So she asked a ground breaking, life changing question of “do you ever host”?

No. Point blank. No. I live in a bird house with hardly any room to live let alone entertain.

She hosts all the time and has once a month things like book club, dinner club, moms night, family night, movie night, and I’m sure I’m missing quite a few more clubs/nights. I’m not even sure there’s enough nights in a month to fit all her “once a months”. But she does it and makes it look effortless. She always has something going on and has been part of my motivation to make things happen. In the friends department… career is still a hot mess.

Okay I’ll start reaching out. Hosting. But not at my house. I have to get creative about this.

I talked to one of my best friends about this. She agreed. She is always the hostess too and does an amazing job of it. Maybe I’ll “host” at her house next time! Any way she brought up another thing to think about in my new master plan at becoming a better friend. She said “if you want people to come to things you host you have to show up to things too”. Well said bff…… well said.

So I’m going to be a better friend and show up to things. No more flaking on people. I promise to come if I say I’m going to. Or at the very least be honest if I have no intention of coming.

I’ve already started this new me thing. I went to the casino last night (yup on a Thursday) to support a fellow instructor and watch her band play. It was great. I had a drink, I danced my bum off, and was home before 10. Brilliant.

Bonus: I shocked a few people in showing up! Reputations can’t be changed in a day so I don’t blame people for doubting me. Also I know there was no better back up plan since they were still going there no matter what.

The next thing I am trying to put together is a Paint & Sip party with a big group. Whoever wants to come can if not, next time.

I don’t like spiders. AT ALL. They are creepy and unpredictable and anything with that many legs has an agenda that I don’t want anywhere near me! Don’t even get me started on the eyes and the hairy ones.

It started as a wonderful Saturday morning. Pat had to work and Rylan woke up at 6 only to get back in bed with me and snuggle till 7. Ah the peaceful snuggle that comes from not knowing there is a massive spider on the wall across the room staring at you. Those were the days.

We woke up and saw the spider and I freaked! First of all this thing was the size of my fist. If Rylan says it wasn’t, remember she’s 3 and she lies. I texted Pat a picture and he called right away to tell me to kill it.

Ummm no. Not going to happen. Pat told me to get a stool and hit it with a shoe. Heck no I’m not getting that close to it. Then he told me to get the swiffer and hit it with that. Did you not hear me say how big it is? It needs to die not just get poked and angry. He still told me to “man up and kill it already”. Then asked what I planned to do if it got away and was just living in the house with us.

I started crying. No I’m not pregnant I’m just that terrified of spiders. Especially ones that could eat other insects! (Okay that one could be a slight exaggeration)

I called my dad and when he didn’t answer I called my Grandpa. That’s right! My grandpa drove 20 minutes to come kill a spider for me.

He got to my house and I had my sweatpants tucked into my tallest Ugg boots and a sweatshirt with the hood on tied so you could only see my eyes. I had to keep an eye on it so it didn’t get away. I had one foot on the window seal and one on the bed and was holding the biggest Emily Post book ever made ready to throw it at the spider if I had to. Meanwhile Rylan is in the living room watching her show singing “itsy bitsy spider” thanks kid. Thanks a lot.

The spider had crawled behind the tv on the shelf and was in a pile of my other books. Papa started pulling them out and the real life Halloween decoration fell on the floor. Papa jumped, I screamed and threw the book on the evil little thing!

If something is big enough that it crunches when hit with a big book I don’t want any part of it!

So with the help of Emily Post and my amazing grandpa we killed it.

Rylan told Papa “it wasn’t that big” but even he will tell you it was!

I learned a few things from this spider trauma. First of all, papa rocks and gets major points for coming all the way there. Second, my best friends husband will not come to get a spider when Pat had told me to man up. Apparently there’s guy code and I’m excepted to handle it on my own! False. Hilarious conversations I never thought I would have.

But yes the spider is dead. I’m traumatized. Rylan thinks mommy is crazy!

Like this:

Rylan is less than a year old and I’m trying to get her down for a nap while visiting my sister-in-law in Chico.

She’s flopping around and trying to talk and crawl away and is refusing to nap. I get frustrated and finally give up and take her to the stroller because I know that works. I’m frustrated and don’t have the energy to force it.

I come out of the room huffing and puffing and go to take her outside. My sister-in-law asks what happened and I start to tell her.

She laughs. “So she’s not crying or fussy, she’s just….awake?”

Me: “well yeah but its annoying I know she’s tired and going to get cranky and she needs to nap.”

I get why she’s laughing. It sound ridiculous when I hear it back to me. Later over a glass of wine we talk about it. She makes me feel better by reminding me that even though Rylan is a great baby and I have no idea how easy I have it, my hard is hard for me.

So while she can handle things and has infinitely more patience than I do, to me… this is hard.

Fast forward to Rylan being almost 3 and still I know how lucky I am.

She listens well and reasons for the most part. She argues at bed time and I want to pull my hair out. I’m sure there are a million moms that would look at our bed time routine and laugh at how frustrated I get. But its hard to me.

We all have no clue what going on in each other life and its so easy to look at every situation and say how you would do it differently. But you know what? It might not work. We all have to do what we know how to do and make changes where we need to in order to make things work for us.

For instance my hard right now (aside from bed time) is a kitten. Who would have thought that something that weighs just over 1 pound can make want to drink. Given, it was 3 weeks old when we were gifted it.

Gifted is a strong word. It was a trash can kitty my cousin found and my Aunt asked if we wanted it. I didn’t. At all. My darling, sweet, animal loving husband was supposed to be the bad guy and say no… he didn’t say no.

We’ve had it a week and its slowly getting better. Not going to lie, the first couple days I was cussing out my aunt dreaming of dropping it off on their doorstep knocking and running away.

The ONLY saving grace was how happy this damn kitten made Rylan. I mean they are buds. Rylan will sit and watch her iPad and this stupid kitten will cuddle on her back and sit in her lap and just snuggle. The smile on my kids face made me realize I couldn’t drop her off at the fire department. Wait is that kittens too?

So my point is everyone’s hard is hard. It doesn’t matter if we laugh at it and dismiss it or fully understand we could not handle that its hard. We all have support systems you just have to find yours. Find your people, your tribe, the one you can open up to about locking the kitten in the bathroom and turning up the radio so you can’t hear it cry. Thankfully my tribe is pretty big. They all understand me.

They also laugh at the fact that now that the kittens getting older and getting a personality she’s turned into a total little psycho.

I’ve had to delete 3 paragraphs from her stepping on my keyboard and throwing me off. In case you are wondering why she’s still living with us here are a few pictures.

Me: nothing it’s just a freaking mess! How did it get so messy we weren’t even here this weekend!

Husband: well it’s not even that bad. Its been way way worse, and it was like this when we left I don’t understand why it’s suddenly so bad.

He’s right. On our quest to become minimalist the kitchen has been cleaner than normal lately. I could do without him being right once in a while. But I take this as a sure sign that I’m changing as a person. The fact that some fruit, a bottle of wine, and the groceries that I just bought, on the counter is sending me over the edge. I’m turning into a cleaner person.

OR… The much more likely explaination is I have PMS. DUN DUN DUN *cue dark music and thunder clouds*

I have always had PMS ever since I was a teenager. If I have to explain what it is you are reading the wrong blog post! I’m not saying I get it every month. But once in a while there’s a month like this one that scares my husband, my mom, the dogs, and even myself just a little.

I can’t be alone in having little things send me over the edge. Little things like a dirty kitchen counter making me want to move. My husband not writing back fast enough results in a series of WTF texts and passive aggressive messages including but not limited to “its fine forget it I can go to the grocery store later. It’s not like I don’t have enough to do”.

I can’t be alone in thinking for 1 week that the world should revolve around me. That’s right the whole world! How dare people have other lives and not wait around for me to want to do something. Only to cancel on them at the last-minute because I want to be around people but don’t actually want to be around people. How can people not know that?!

I can’t be alone in being COMPLETELY irrational and out of control of my emotions. Its like seeing a red light and knowing, logically, that I need to slow down and stop yet I hit the gas anyway. I know its wrong, I know I’m not making any sense and that whatever I’m feeling/saying will be different in a week, but it doesn’t matter. I have no control of the irrational things I’m thinking/doing.

This is where getting rid of things can be a good thing. Its good timing when you’re irrational to throw away everything and get rid of anything that is in your way or doesn’t change you mood. Which is everything because there is no help for this mood!

People will tell you “exercise and get rid of caffeine”. Ummm what? Don’t drink coffee? I’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore. That’s the worst idea ever! When you are the most tired and need all the help you can get…. don’t take it. Exercise really does work. I also know this to be a fact. However, when I’m in the middle of a mood swing and some one suggest exercise, they better start running themselves because I want to throat punch them.

Did I mention I have PMS right now?!

I also have to say that getting yourself to exercise during PMS should be worthy of an award. Or at least a gift card. People say gift cards are thoughtless but let me just tell you… give a Day-o or Sephora gift card to a woman with PMS and she will switch moods like a toddler who just got their way.

To the women who think you don’t get PMS…. Yes you do. I’m sorry but its true. Its okay don’t be sad. Even if you truly think you don’t get it. You just don’t realize it. Again, it’s not your fault. Chances are your PMS has taken over your thought process and the bitch is lying to you. You are forgiven. Or maybe you really don’t get it and I just think you do because I have PMS and think you get moody when really its me.

See this whole thing is just one giant tornado of irrational thoughts and snarky comments. This is my disclaimer to anyone dealing with me this week.